Our Oceans and the fundamental role that Data Science plays

By Álvaro Paredes, data scientist at Data Observatory

From childhood we are taught that the oceans cover almost three quarters of the Earth’s surface, but sometimes little is explained to us why they play an important role in maintaining life on the planet. NASA indicates that the oceans contribute to the generation of 50% of the oxygen we breathe (thanks to phytoplankton), to the absorption of about 25% of all CO2 emissions and 90% of the excess heat generated by climate change. (the first meters of the ocean store the same amount of “heat” as the entire atmosphere), therefore, our seas are essential to maintain the delicate climate balance. They also provide a habitat for countless species and contribute to critical activities such as fishing, tourism and transportation.

The incipient increase in the volume of data that is collected by different means worldwide, makes Data Science increasingly relevant, offering invaluable tools to understand the complexity of these marine ecosystems. The development of various analytical and even predictive techniques has been accelerated by unfortunate events, such as the Deepwater Horizon oil rig tragedy in 2010 (located in the Gulf of Mexico), the worst involuntary oil spill catastrophe in the history of The humanity. This terrible event evidenced the urgency of having efficient and effective tools in record time.

At Data Observatory (DO) we work on a series of projects with open data that allow interoperability and collaboration between different actors (universities, governments, NGOs, public service, etc.), since as an institution, we want to contribute to the enormous challenge of taking care of our planet, especially our oceans, where we believe that the potential of open data is a fundamental input to generate more assertive public policies. Along these lines, we have worked on initiatives with IFOP (fishery resources platform), Sernapesca (digital statistical yearbook) and the IDEAL Research Center (with the STARM platform). We have also promoted Hackathons with the Air Force and INRIA, the latter especially focused on marine issues, where multidisciplinary teams seek to find solutions to environmental problems through applied data science.

Other tools, such as remote sensing, have increasing potential for monitoring our oceans, with a continuous growth in the number of sensors available and higher resolution (spatial and temporal). Notable initiatives such as the Global Fishing Watch project, which mixes Data Science and satellite images to monitor and track fishing activity around the world with the purpose of identifying illegal fishing. On the other hand, platforms such as Data Cube Chile (in which the DO participates together with CSIRO Chile and the UAI), seek to bring this enormous volume of satellite images closer to the community, in order to facilitate the analysis of this type of information to all the actors involved.

The great extension of the oceans and the difficulty to understand them undoubtedly represent great challenges for technologies. Today we have better instruments, greater analytical capacity and better models to understand, explain and predict what is happening in our seas. It only remains to understand its main processes and contribute with the support of new tools to its conservation, which, incidentally, give us greater chances of coping with climate change as humanity.